Designers Court
935 Route 73 South
Marlton, NJ 08053
856-985-5550
www.atlas-wallpaper.com
AT HOME WITH ATLAS
The black wire bird cage stood at least six feet high, and I tried to imagine the size of the bird it might house. Perhaps a whole flock of birds would better suit it. But I wouldn’t need to worry about where to put it or what to put in it. It was marked ‘SOLD’ and at Atlas Interior Home Fashions in Marlton, the pieces are truly one of a kind, meaning you couldn’t order another if you wanted to.
It was my first trip there and I wanted to move in. The showroom itself is a masterpiece – all 20,000 square feet of it ??– filled with hopelessly exotic pieces. It was as if a Hollywood set designer had come in to perfect the set-up, complete with hand painted and antique accessories and dramatic mood lighting. The effect was cozy, colorful and thoroughly enticing. A far cry from the wallpaper company that brought Atlas to fame.
Atlas President Ted Spivak detailed a long history that began with his father Max almost eighty years ago. “My father started working for his father, Sam, hanging paper in Philadelphia,” recalled Spivak. “In 1925, he opened his own business, Max Spivak Paperhanging, on Passyunk Avenue. He and my mother Reba opened a small store downtown and moved several times through the 1930s and the Great Depression, In 1937, they landed on South Street.”
The business expanded to a family business with Manny Katz, Ted’s brother-in-law, coming on as temporary help in 1946. Max was having health problems, so Manny stayed on and took over the business when Max passed away later that same year. Manny was shouldering a large responsibility at age 22. Ted himself was only seven.
By 1952, Max Spivak Paperhanging had a new name? – Atlas. The family liked the image of the famous body builder Charles Atlas. More importantly, the listing would come first in the phone book. A decade later, after completing a stint at Temple University and a tour in the Air Force, Ted would join the business.
“I came in at a critical time,” said Ted. “It was the era of wallpaper. Sheet rock and dry wall weren’t perfected to the point where you could paint them and have them look good. People were papering every room.”
They were also moving out of Philadelphia in droves. “There was a tremendous growth in South Jersey after the opening of the Walt Whitman Bridge. They were literally building thousands of homes in the Cherry Hill area and we were papering them.”
In 1962, Atlas opened a Cherry Hill office to be closer to its expanding customer base. By this time, their volume had grown to the point where they were able to buy direct from manufacturers. “We’d warehouse the paper,” said Ted, “and we’d sell the overflow to smaller stores. It put us in a completely different league. We grew the business until we were the league champions.” It would be the beginning of a very successful distribution business.
By the late 1960s, development had slowed and paint had reared its ‘ugly head,’ with water soluble varieties and spray guns furnishing an attractive alternative to wallpaper. It was a critical time for Atlas Wallpaper.
“We made a tough decision,” acknowledged Ted. “We knew that our success was limited if we went forward as we did in the sixties, with eighty percent of our business coming from retail and twenty from distribution. We decided to expand our distribution capabilities.”
Atlas built a network that stretched from New England to Virginia, with over five thousand individual accounts, including Sherwin Williams that alone represented 2,000 stores. Ted and Manny ran the operation and saw distribution grow?to represent eighty-five percent of their business.
By then, the “boys” were old enough to join the business. Ted’s son Michael, and Manny’s sons, Howard and Bernard, took over the retail operation.
By 1986, it was clear that Atlas needed larger facilities. They chose a strip of land along Route 73 that was literally in the middle of nowhere. But Ted and Manny forecasted that Route 73 would follow suit with the type of development that had characterized both Route 38 and Route 70.
It would take four agonizing years to get that property developed, and Manny would not live to see it. His passing in 1989 put Ted at the helm as president. He and the family went into partnership with a developer and put in a 33,000 square feet warehouse, showroom and offices at the Route 73 site. It’s where Ted sits today, telling his story.
“My mother would make us lunch upstairs,” remembers Ted. “The grandchildren would be around, playing. We’d be working. I’d ask my mother, ‘Why don’t you take a vacation?’ And she’d respond with, ‘Where else can I go and see my whole family?’”
And while the family continued to work together, the distribution business began to change. Distributors were looking for larger territories and the successful ones were going national. In 1998, Atlas was approached with a compelling offer to buy their distribution business. Ted was single-handedly managing the business since Manny’s death, and with the hearts of his son and nephews in retail, he agreed to sell.
“At this point, wholesale represented three quarters of our business,” he said. “We had this huge empty warehouse and a small retail business so we had to re-invent ourselves once again.”
They looked toward furniture.
“I’m not talking the type of furniture that you can get at a Goods or Levitz,” he explained. “We wanted to do something unusual, unique. We wanted to be a specialty shop.”
They brought in a furniture consultant who trained Howie as the buyer. ??His task is to find high end, interesting pieces with a certain exclusivity. He travels twice a year to Europe and throughout the year to California and North Carolina, buying from designers like Henredon or Maitland-Smith, companies that may make just six of a certain piece for the entire country. Because of that, the furniture inventory at Atlas is constantly changing.
“It’s part of the charm,” acknowledges Ted. “Customers come back every few weeks to see what’s new. Decorators are especially fond of this approach, as they can offer their clients unique and exclusive pieces.”
Today, 48 employees strong with about half a dozen family members in the mix, Atlas still provides the wide range of wallpaper that launched its business. A large section of the showroom is reserved with several consultants available to help.
“In today’s world,” said Ted, “we wander around huge stores with no one available to answer questions. We make sure we’re here and available.”
“A third generation business must evolve, and change,” said Ted. “But it’s nice to know that we can maintain relationships that we worked so hard to build.”
If history repeats itself, the next generation is poised to enter the business. Some are still in their teens and others in their twenties, but to date, no one has expressed a strong interest.
“They think we work too hard,” said Ted.